Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2024
Publication Title
Journal of Macromarketing
Keywords
meaningful consumption, quality of life, qualitative research, depth interview, eudaimonia
Abstract
While consumers frequently seek meaning through their marketplace interactions, a comprehensive understanding of meaningful consumption is conspicuously absent from marketing literature. Such insight would notably benefit macromarketing scholars who aim to evaluate the implications of consumer purchasing decisions on quality of life. Addressing this gap, our study employs 40 in-depth interviews to arrive at the phenomenological essence of meaningful consumption. We discover that meaningful consumption comprises three key themes—rejuvenation, expansion, and consolidation—accompanied by seven related sub-themes: repair and reconnection; intellectual, pragmatic, and relational expansion; and crystallization and contextualization. Our overarching framework enriches macromarketing theory by virtue of its ability to accommodate a large variety of meaningful consumption experiences while simultaneously enhancing existing discourse on the eudaimonic aspects of consumption.
Funding Source
This manuscript is based in part on findings from the first author’s dissertation which was completed during the doctoral program at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the financial support they received from the Marketing departments of the College of Business at the University of Nebraska- Lincoln and the College of Business and Economics at the University of Kentucky for conducting this research. This article was published Open Access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Sage.
DOI
10.1177/02761467241236485
Recommended Citation
Gupta, A., Eilert, M., & Gentry, J. W. (2024). Meaningful Consumption. Journal of Macromarketing. https://doi.org/10.1177/02761467241236485.
Comments
First published in Journal of Macromarketing (2024). https://doi.org/10.1177/02761467241236485.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.